16 hours per week training program

This training program is designed for serious riders who already have a solid mileage. I will recommend that you use a heart rate monitor or even better a power meter in your training. During short intervals a heart rate monitor is worth nothing because the reactions from the cardiac system are delayed with a few minutes. This article is very useful for beginners: Introduction to training with power meters. A heart rate monitor is still valuable, it is motivating to train with and it is a good education to see how your body performs and reacts during training. So don´t throw your heart rate monitor away!

In this program Tuesday and Thursday are the days for interval training. Mondays and Saturdays are recovery days. I suggest you do a short 5 min interval the day before the race day. After three weeks of intensive training I recommend you take a recovery week with less training, less intervals but at the same high intensity as usual. It is also important to be serious when you are not training. I am talking about optimizing your recovery. When you are ready to spend 16 hours per week on training, you should at least consider why you are doing it. Try to write down some of the goals you want to achieve. Also remember to write down your performance in some kind of a diary. It can be very useful for you later. I will come back later with an article about how to write a training diaries.

Here is the training program:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
app.16hr	1,5hr recovery	4hr – 3x(3+3)min V02 max	3hr – 4×200m sprint	3,5hr – 2×10min AT	Rest	1hr easy ride.	Race, 3hr.
app.16hr	1,5hr recovery	4hr – 3×5x(40+20)sec. V02 max	3hr – 4×200m sprint	3,5hr – 4x(3+3)min V02 max	Rest	1hr easy ride.	Race, 3hr.
app.16hr	1,5hr recovery	4hr – 2×10min AT	3hr – 4×200m sprint	3,5hr – 3×5x(40+20)sec. V02 max	Rest	1hr easy ride.	Race, 3hr.
app.10hr	Rest	2hr – 2x(3+3)min VO2 max	2hr – 4×150m	2hr – 2×4x(40×20)min VO2 max	Rest	1hr easy ride.	Race, 3hr.